Welcome to TiddlyWiki created by Jeremy Ruston, Copyright © 2007 UnaMesa Association
The Internet has been good to Colbie Caillat. Just a few months after a friend helped her put a few of her songs on her <html> <a
href="http://www.myspace.com/colbiecaillat">MySpace</a> </html> page, her profile was getting a thousand hits a day <html> <a
href="http://www.inthenews.co.uk/infocus/entertainment/music/colbie-caillat-i-owe-myspace-$1173227.htm">(Brazley, 2007)</a> </html>. For four months, Caillat was the top unsigned artist on the site earning 10 million plays of her songs and more than 160,000 "friends." She eventually signed a record deal with Universal in March 2007, and her album "Coco" debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard chart, selling 51,000 copies in its first week. <html> <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081600730.html"> (Harrington, 2007)</a> </html>. Others, including Lily Allen and the Arctic Monkeys, have followed a similar MySpace path. On YouTube, Esmee Denters covers of others' tunes, especially one of Justin Timberlake's <html> <a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Grnh7Qin8">"What Goes Around"</a> </html> landed her a deal, with Timberlake's label. Denters even appeared online with Timberlake to announce the deal. Another YouTube darling, <html> <a
href="http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/01/25/youtube-phenom-mia-rose-has-her-thorns">Mia Rose</a> </html>, was criticized for following the online path to success a little too closely and expertly (/).
It's shortsighted, however, to think that the success of artists like Caillat, Esmee and Mia Rose makes the Internet only a vehicle for musical self-promotion. Like the bootleg tape or the impromptu concert on a rooftop, the Internet more appropriately represents the newest way to share and interpret music. Performers record themselves and post it on YouTube or MySpace or anywhere else because they enjoy the songs and enjoy performing. In many instances, they are seeking to introduce audiences to their fresh interpretations of classic material, much as Harvey (2007) describes what Bob Dylan did for the song "Man of Constant Sorrow." His was not the first version of the song. Nor was it or will it be the last, but oral scholars study it because of what it adds to the re-performance tradition. In fact, the journal <html> <a href="journal.oraltradition.org/issues/22i">Oral Tradition</a> </html> devoted its entire 22nd issue to Bob Dylan's performance artistry. Negus (2007) writes that Dylan activates a "living oral tradition" each time he performs in concert.
>"He is heir to the legacies of social, communal, and ritual music-making that refracts from the contemporary pop and rock back to folk and blues, street-sung broadsides and work songs, he melodic observations of medieval troubadours, and the sacred rhythms of Christianity and Judaism" (p.71).
Oral performers, like Dylan, Negus writes, are about more than lyrics, music, or melodies. They are best evaluated by their performances as a whole, where they weave all elements together for specific audiences, often altering words, music or peformance style based on the messages they want to present or the audiences they intend to educate or entertain. "Songs are experienced in the very way that they unfold as music in time, connecting with our bodies in a manner far removed from ... intellectual contemplation and reflection" (p. 72).
While he doesn't have Dylan's popularity or prestige, Jerry Chang evokes the same musical heritage with his arrangement of Pachelbel's "Canon," that he called "Canon Rock." By following the framework Harvey (2007) established, which includes gathering versions of the song, "looking for historical or geographical connections first between individual versions and then variant groups," and finally constructing a history of the song from the research, I demonstrate how "Canon Rock" typifies how online musical expression is better understood from an oral performance context rather than a purely commercial one.
Chang's version of Canon Rock is merely the first in a succession of repeats and reinventions. The 26-year-old Taiwanese musician created his arrangement in just two weeks and according to an interview with the <html> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/arts/television/27heff.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">New York Times </a> </html> (Hefferna, 2006), he simply wanted to share it with others. The piece's complicated fingerwork made sharing an audio file inadequate, so he plopped down on his bed, made a video, and posted it to his <html> <a href="http://jerryc.tw/">Web site </a> </html> in 2005. Within week's Chang said he was flooded with comments and requests for "tabs," or the written music for what he had played. He complied, posting the tabs, his backing track, and even how-to videos <html> <a href="http://www.jerrycfan.net/jerryc_video_links/"> online</a> </html>. Of all the fans - and one unofficial fan site has compiled more than 80 - who would imitate Chang, none were more successful than a 24-year-old Korean who went by the handle "funtwo."
I've included here a comparison video showing Jerry C and funtwo's version side by side.
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Jeong-Hyun Lim said he taught himself guitar for six years. He took one month's worth of lessons in 2000. When he saw Chang's "Canon Rock," he knew it was something he needed to try (Heffernan, 2006). He posted his video to a Korean Web site called Mule and simply called it "guitar." When another user added it to YouTube's lineup, it took off. Based on YouTube views alone, Lim's version would have been certified gold in a week (Heffernan, 2006). But it took real sleuthing to even find out who funtwo was because several others were willing to take credit for his creation. One included a 12-year-old boy, Alfonso Candra, from New York City, who played the piece at the Indonesian Embassy.
When Heffernan, a New York Times reporter, tracked him down, Lim seemed reluctant to come forward. Both Lim and Chang were modest about their abilities. Lim said the main purpose of posting his videos online is to get feedback. “I think play is more significant than appearance," he told Heffenan. "Therefore I want the others to focus on my fingering and sound. Furthermore I know I’m not that handsome.”
But in shying away from publicity and the fame and fortune associated with major record label distribution, online musicians like Lim and Chang, are taking part in an oral tradition. Peter Robles, a composer who also manages classical musicians, told the Times that Baroque music "was meant to be performed and enjoyed in private rooms, at close range, where others could observe the musicians’ technique. 'That’s how people learned how to play Bach,' (he) said. 'The music wasn’t written down. You just picked it up from other musicians'" (Heffernan, 2006).
Through online distribution, Chang and Lim are creating a stronger connection between musicians than if they had relied on static texts. Lim's video on YouTube has been viewed almost 33 million times. People have left more than 33,000 comments and 520 responses, many of which include reperformances and discussions of the technique. Funtwo's contribution has even expanded the repertoire of what can be played on classical guitar. Gabrockstar even borrows from Beethoven to create "Fur Elise Rock." But he wasn't the first and probably won't be the last. There are more than a dozen version of "Fur Elise Rock" already online.
<html> <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/weAlkcxknNk&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/weAlkcxknNk&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> </html>
By creating such a fervor over a classical song, the oral tradition around "Canon Rock" has done more than renew interest in classical music and guitar. Heffernan describes one instance in which the song actually brought a family together. The song brought Candra, the 12-year-old who claimed to be "funtwo," and his father closer together, according to an e-mail the father sent to <html> <a href="http://themedium.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/funtwos-identity-revealed/">Heffernan</a></html>. He wrote: "I would like to express our gratitude for your article in The New York Times. It really opened my heart as a parent to know my child’s talent. Now, because his video has been watched by 7 million people and some of them really want to know him, he would like to practice that song again. Last Sunday, I just bought him an electric guitar and he started to practice again after one year 4 months of never touching the electric guitar."
"Canon Rock" is just one of thousands of examples of the oral musical tradition at work online. Two of YouTube's top 50 most viewed music videos are from unsigned artists. Funtwo's "guitar" comes in at No. 4, while Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain" is No. 41.
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Zonday also claims inspiration from "Canon Rock." His "Canon in Z" features him alone at a piano in front of a strategically placed mirror. Without the Internet "musical introverts" like Lim, Chang and Zonday would have had to settle for "a life passion that's basically between them and a wall," Zonday told David Sarno of the Los Angeles Times (Sarno, 2007). But with YouTube, "it's them, the wall and a camera. The camera becomes a way to be social with other people."
Zonday's own work has had its imitators. Most have created humorous parodies of a song that deals with racism. But Zonday doesn't seem to mind. "If 1% of people get a sense that it's about something deeper, you take that gain and move forward," said Zonday, who studies the relationship between performance and social movements. "If everyone else is just entertained, then that's that" (Sarno, 2007).
Online exposure has led to real-world success for all of these artists. Zonday adapted his song for a Dr Pepper commercial called "Cherry Chocolate Rain." Both Lim and Chang have signed major label deals. But a careful examination of the history, reaction to and re-performance of their work suggests this wasn't their initial goal. More importantly it demonstrates how the openness of the Internet defies the creation of controllable texts the music industry covets. Their online forays, and probably those of other artists such as Caillat and Denters, were more about connecting with the music and fans than selling records.
When she thought about her weight, Yvonne said she felt like dieing. But she has overcome overeating by following a simple diet plan and now she's evangelizing to the world about the results. No, she's not Subway's latest spokeperson or a contestant on NBC "The Biggest Loser." She's a member of <html> <a href="http://www.greysheet.org/">Greysheeters Anonymous</a> </html> Greysheeters Anonymous, a non-profit fellowship of men and women "who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from compulsive overeating," according to the group's site. Hear Yvonne's story and hundreds of other Greysheet members in their entirety <html> <a href="http://www.greysheet.org/audio/">here</a> </html>.
Yvonne is just one of millions of people who have turned to the Internet for help and support in dealing with health conditions. According to a 2005 study by the <html> <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/156/report_display.asp/">Pew Internet and American Life Project</a> </html> eight out of every 10 Internet users looked online for health information. Women, internet users younger than 65, college graduates, those with more online experience, and those with broadband access are most likely than others to seek health advice from the Web, and they have a bevy of sites to choose from. The largest aggregator of health discussion topics, Healthboards.com, maintains more than 150 boards with topics ranging from breast cancer to male issues to dealing with plastic surgery.
Even though the number of people seeking online health advice has grown, researchers have struggled to understand what people like Yvonne gain from sharing so much about themselves online. Information gain is one obvious reason, but <html> <a href="http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/rodgers.html/">Rodgers and Chen</a> </html> (2005) argue there's much more to an online forum. "From these findings we can conclude that information exchange is just one benefit gained from Internet use, and there are other psychosocial benefits these women gain from participating in an online discussion board." These psychosocial benefits include social support, greater optimism toward the disease, increased ability to cope with the disease, improved mood and decreased psychological stress.
A misunderstood genre of oral tradition reflects a similar trend. <html><a href="http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/19i/garner/">Garner</a> </html>(2004) examined how researchers dismissed many healing charms as pure "superstition" because they looked only at their texts, not the performance cues embedded in the text. If a researcher even attempts to understand how the charm was performed, he or she will see "the charm's function as healing remedy becomes all-encompassing, and once familiar dichotomies quickly break down, revealing insightful intersections between categories that might first seem mutually exclusive," she writes. For example, some charms describe activities that science has now shown to have curative powers, such as creating an acetate solution filled with iron by plunging a knife into a cup of vinegar. Most importantly, however, the performance aspects "are believed to have instilled confidence in patients and to have established the authority of the physician - again not an entirely foreign concept even by modern standards."
To better understand the reasons people like Yvonne are so willing to share so much about themselves and their conditions online, I will apply the performance tradition once again to a couple of snippets from online support group interactions to show that real psychological benefits come from sharing stories and supporting others, both things it would be hard to see if one looks only at the texts posted exclusively. The benefits fall into three categories that resemble the importance of performance in healing charms: social support, greater optimism toward the disease and increased confidence in the treatment.
The most common activity on discussion boards sites seems like information sharing, and plenty of that goes on. Posters give their opinions of doctors in the area, new treatments, the effects of certain medicines and even symptoms of complications. But even that information is most often shared in an experiential way (Rodgers & Chen, 2005). The most common activity in online discussion groups is simply the sharing of life stories. Take for example, <html><a href="http://members5.boardhost.com/men_only/msg/1188330940.html">DaveF's</a> </html> post on the caregivers & men's support board on http://bcsupport.org. He's struggling with how to help his wife deal with a recurrence even though she seems distant and easily provoked. To be fair, facing one's mortality justifies a little grouchiness now and then, but for DaveF, it seems too much. The last line of his post underscores his motivation.
>Looking back on this email, I guess I'm saying the things I need to get off my chest that I'd like to say to her, except that it'll only come across as me trying to instigate a fight or as criticism of her, which is not what I'd want to do.
>Thanks for running this board to give a guy the chance to let off a little steam.
Judging by the number of responses he received, DaveF achieved his goal of social support. Interestingly, one of his responders DianeC, frequently offers similar shoulders to cry on for other men on the board. She begins each of her posts the same way: "Dear (person's name) ......"
According to Rodgers and Chen, DaveF's life story allows a poster to connect to a greater social community. "Personal narratives not only relect an individual's experience with illness, but contribute to the experience and may shape personal relationships," they write. The most time a person has spent on a discussion board, the more likely he or she is to move beyond sharing and toward exclusively offering support to others, much like DianeC. In the oral sense, DianeC's encouragements are more than texts. She is well known on the site for her pats on the back and has established her reputation as arguably the top healer online.
Supportive interactions like these provide the way participants can gain improve their attitude toward their disease. Within the same discussion board, <html><a href="http://members5.boardhost.com/men_only/msg/1180976752.html">Thomas</a> </html> has shared his wife Erin's story for more than a year. One of his first posts describes his need for assurance that everything will be OK:
>Does anyone have any advice on easing anxiety that comes with all of this? I feel like a "sponge" sometimes in asking so many questions / making so many posts here... but all of the visitors here are so wonderful.
>I am trying my best to keep up hope and faith that things will heal, things will turn out "negative" or "chronic" or simply "doable"... and not the worst. However, my thoughts and dreams are injected almost randomly with sincere fears that when that time comes (hopefully after our 50th wedding anniversary!) something will keep me from being with her.
>I feel like I'm rambling, but I really just needed to write that down. I've spoken to Erin about it, and she's almost laughed which is her perfect way of saying "do not worry about it." And I know I don't need to, but so... thoughts like that seem to pop up throughout the days and I wonder if anyone else has any advice.
Throughout his posts, Thomas' optimism seems to wax and wane, but he always seems to return to the board with an update as a way to find his <html><a href="http://members5.boardhost.com/men_only/msg/1194981482.html">emotional center</a> </html> once again.
>She is doing great! The wounds are healing, and getting smaller. They had to be cut back a bit, at one point, because the skin was turning a bit black, but overall... we can see noticeable improvement.
>Her spirits are great and perfect. She's doing more and understands it now when she gets tired.
>We are hoping that she continues to heal well, and that any more tests come back negative, and such.
>Overall.. we are looking at a nice peaceful holiday season.
For many people dealing with disease hope is all they have, and just like the medicine woman in oral cultures, online discussion can provide the same confidence. What Thomas' posted doesn't tell the story. The reasons why he has decided to keep up his narrative for more than a year do and the forum he chooses do.
Finally, increased support and optimism lead to greater confidence in treatment options. We switch to another health board for this examination because confidence in treatment is vital even for non-life threatening procedures. In healthboards.com's discussion of plastic surgery, <html><a href="http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=534053">golfmom1</a> </html>needs to know if her decision to get a tummy tuck is really the right one. She's heard about some of the side effects, especially the fact she'll have to wear drainage bags for a month, and worries how they'll affect her life. "I don't fully understand the drainage tubes," she writes. "Where are they put in and how long do you have them??
I do have another consultation with the doctor prior to surgery, but I would like to hear from someone who has been there!" Her words seems to indicate she has at least equal confidence in a group of people she's probably never met as her doctor.
The advice she receives ranges from supportive statements to detailed medical descriptions, but the common thread is that, while painful initially, a tummy tuck is something she won't regret. River525's candid comment is probably the best example:
>They help with the fluid retention/swelling. I had mine in for a good bit and then when they removed them I still had to have fluid drained off for a week or two more (didn't hurt). Make sure you have some loose fitting sweat pants to wear for a while - definitely no tight blue jeans at first.
>Tummy tucks can be quite painful during recovery BUT it is one of the most rewarding. I kick myself for waiting so long to have the surgery.
No one can instill confidence better than a group of likeminded individuals. Nowhere can this be achieved better than online because the Internet can bring together people from diverse demographic groups and geographic locations (Rodgers & Chen, 2005). Even though ancient healing charms couldn't operate over vast distances, they were often an important element in creating community cohesion (Garner, 2004).
Other aspects of online discussions distinguish them as more oral than textual traditions, such as the informality of language, the use of pseudonyms and the ongoing and interactive nature of the dialogs. In the end, the most important wisdom to gain from applying oral principles to online textual discussions may be how important the aspects of performance are to achieving true benefits. Researchers who decry the superstitious nature of healing charms of the inaccurate information of online discussions miss the point that these oral traditions fulfill far more important ends than information exchange.
Readers of the <html> <a
href="http://jayisgames.com/archives/2006/12/line_rider_beta_2.php">Jay is Games</a> </html>casual gaming blog named it the best Web toy of 2006. <html><a
href="http://www.kotaku.com">Kotaku.com</a> </html>, the video game blog which <html> <a
href="http://www.technorati.com/blogs/kotaku.com">Technorati.com</a> </html> consistently ranks one of its 20 most popular blogs, has featured <html> <a
href="http://kotaku.com/gaming/line-rider/">gameplay clips</a> </html> at least a dozen times in 2007, despite promising not to over and over again. But its creator Boštjan čadež, a Slovenian industrial design student, hesitates to call it a game.
>“It was more an accident than anything else,” he told Computer Gaming World. “I just like programming, and it seemed a nice idea.” (Murdoch, 2007).
When he posted his creation, which he dubbed <html> <a
href="http://linerider.com/">Line Rider</a> </html>, on his <html> <a
href="http://fsk.deviantart.com/">deviantART.com</a> </html> profile in September 2006, he ended up creating an Internet phenomenon that more than 26 million people have viewed and close to 2 million have downloaded.
The concept behind Line Rider is simple. Using a simple Flash-based interface, players draw lines that become the slopes, jumps, loops and falls that a cute little stick man wearing a scarf and riding a sled follows. , an art student, said the idea came
from the pencil designs he created in class to pass the time, but he had to add a physics engine he downloaded from Gamasutra.com to make it real.
>“I think the way I [saw] it, it was a kind of new medium,” he said, “something between a comic, a cartoon, and a game” (Murdoch, 2007).
People have responded to čadež's creation in droves. A <html> <a
href="http://http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=line%20rider&search_sort=video_view_count&search_category=0&search=Search&v=&uploaded=/">
You Tube </a> </html> search for "Line Rider" yields more than 40,000 results, including the "Jagged Peak Adventure" below, which Belgian Web developer Steven Witten created, and has been viewed more than 5.7 million times.
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>"The first time you play, the character will certainly fall off the sled, helplessly flailing his arms as he falls to his doom," Wittens told The Toronto Star in November 2006. "Your first instinct is to try again and before you know it, you've spent an hour drawing nothing but lines" (Kopun, 2007).
Line Rider users are drawing more than lines, said Matthew Nelson, who goes by TechDawg online. "When combined with the right music and presented in the right way, a Line Rider track becomes more than just a set of lines," he said. "It becomes a story, a world that you can enter, suspend your disbelief for a few moments."
In fact, he first connected with Line Rider as a way to bond with his 9-year-old son, and he has become the de facto leader of the Line Rider community (Murdoch, 2007) through his personal site, <html> <a
href="http://IRidetheLines.com/">IridetheLines.com. </a> </html> He is even working with čadež to create a commercial version. His most popular video creation, a 4-minute short he calls "Monumental," has been viewed more than 2.7 million times on YouTube.
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Just what about Line Rider makes it an example of oral tradition at work online? Even if they can truly transport people to other worlds, don't the videos remain intractable texts that in the end, belong only to their creator? Isn't this just another example of people wasting a lot of time?
In reality, Line Rider operates as an oral tradition because it has provided the framework for a new form of storytelling, one that sustains a community and transmits culture. To understand how it works and to situate this oral tradition within its performance arena, let's examine what fluent audience members know about and expect from "riding the lines."
First and foremost, Line Rider is about telling stories. Maybe in the beginning, as the Line Rider program provided only a way to draw a few black lines, it was OK to forego backgrounds and other narrative elements, but now the Line Rider community has become so sophisticated in what it does that more is required. In fact, one of the earliest examples at doing more with less remains one of the most viewed Line Rider videos. Calling himself "HumanCrouton," Brett Hurban created "Line Rider Helicopter Rescue" with beta version 1 and evoked both myth and war story by having the Line Rider, who most artists affectionately call "The Dude," end up safely in the cargo hold of a chopper after a harrowing journey over fences and through impossible loops.
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"It's something nice and simple but allows complex designs," he told the Toronto Star (Kopun, 2006). "It kind of forces creativity." This forced creativity Hurban discussed has propelled Line Rider to new heights. Most of the stories now revolve around mountain scenes and other logical locales for a dude on sled. But others have placed "The Dude" in MC Escher style digital playgrounds. Omniquirk even calls his dizzying display "Reality."
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The "Reality" title might even be a play on another important element to Line Rider. While artists provide the scenes and the scenarios, the game still provides the physics, and even if you can tweak it do what you want, audiences still expect something they believe. Routinely, new videos are criticized for putting "The Dude" in impossible situations, such as having him spin and flip for too long. The standard on which audience members judge resembles how one might judge skateboarding. For example, one of the hardest tricks to pull in Line Ride is the "nose ride" and entire forums have been established for discussing <html> <a
href="http://www.lineriderfun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=61">how to pull one off</a> </html>and <html> <a
href="http://www.lineriderfun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=246"> how long</a> </html> artists have been able to hold one.
These forums also help demonstrate how important the Line Rider community is. No one builds a track just for himself. They are meant to be shared and many of the top designers even offer tutorials on how they created their tracks. Other forums allow users to post their unfinished tracks for feedback. <html> <a href="http://ericstoller.com/blog/2007/01/25/line-rider-trading-lines-and-sols/"> Eric Stoller </a> </html> has even created a game he calls "Line Rider Badminton" where participants e-mail a track to a friend, who then has one hour to add to it and e-mail it to someone else. One <html> <a href="http://jayisgames.com/archives/2006/09/line_rider.php"> game</a> </html>on the Jay Is Games site has persisted for more than a year.
What has sustained this game and Line Rider in general is the "toy's" ability to embed itself in online culture. Audience members recognize Line Rider is a waste of time for most, but it's a break from a life in which everything has to move so rapidly toward a focused end. Audiences enjoy that Line Rider has no goals because it allows them to connect it to other important aspects of their lives. Often this assumes the form of other popular culture references, such as this clip, where SkiPest tries to recreate the opening to the TV show the Simpsons.
<html> <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Es3qK0QXBN0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Es3qK0QXBN0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> </html>
No matter what it references, how it is built or how it is shared, Line Rider represents more than a text. In fact, looking at the texts only - the Line Rider tracks online - leads one to assume it is merely a game. It requires understanding the context, the performance arena, to truly see how there is more to Line Rider than a toy, a game or even a "dude" on a sled. The symbol of a boy, bundled against the cold to ride his sled, may represent a return to innocence in an increasingly complicated world.
Dividing oral tradition and the Internet, as this wiki does, may have been convenient but theoretically flawed. Rarely is anything either entirely oral or literate (Rosenberg, 1987). "The truth, as is usually the case with truth, is mixed. Oral and literative societies exist in a continuity, not a dichotomy, as do their lyrics and narratives. The two kinds of societies, if one can even speak of 'kinds,' are not purely separate" (74).
The reason we miss the contributions oral traditions make to our language is we have become so reliant on texts and now electronic communication that we have made it the "model for all utterance, and eventually, for all existence," Ong (1995) writes. The advent of electronic communication technology, however, has brought the mix of oral and textual traditions more into focus than ever before.
>"Computers, after all, do not breed themselves. They come out of the human lifeworld, are tools, extensions of human beings (not vice versa). Computers are artificial, but in being so are eminently human. For there is nothing more natural to human beings than to be artificial. Digits start by being connected with the person" (23).
To truly understand this intersection between electronic and oral, between modern and ancient, Ong calls for hermeneutics to integrate the increasingly digitized and divided world. The underlying principle of hermeneutics is everything is related to everything else and by making simple connections, we can begin to order the world in such as way as to create an "unbroken web of history out of which all experience of anything emerges" (17).
Today's increasingly complicated world especially needs a unifying theme to bring it together, Jenkins (2007) agrees, and he sees the Internet as a good start. "Precisely because modernity's tale contains much truth - and only paradoxically - we all still seem to need the nation of tradition to refer to something that is neither documented history nor the instantanea of the modern mass-mediated world" (163). In what he calls a "testament to the research potential of Google" (177), Jenkins integrates some principles of oral traditions to investigate how tales of Biddy Early, an Irish magical healer, grew from local story to worldwide legend.
Fernback (2003) also notes the applicability of oral tradition to CMC in her study of how urban legends transmit online. Like the oral traditions they mimic, online urban legends are "symbolic of our almost morbid cultural fascination with the ugliness that lies just beneath the surface of normalcy and peacefulness of everyday existence. They reinforce social norms by emphasizing traditional morality in the face of these underlying social pathologies" (32).
Based on these studies' trailblazing work, I have drawn the following ways in which Internet communication and oral tradition intersect from OT scholarship. Each principle builds upon the one before it to demonstrate how online communities can grow around what seems fairly trivial on the surface. The examples that follow represent my attempt to apply this continuum to three online contexts that deserve closer inspection.
#Online oral traditions have their own language, with its own words and structures that require a heightened level of fluency among audience members to get the most from the performance.
#This online symbolic language also contains shared scenes and story telling patterns. In fact, most online oral tradition, I argue, is based on storytelling within the selected performance arena.
#Telling one's own story is not enough to make an online tradition oral. The essence of an oral act online is its performance, in that if either invites reperformance, or at least, comments from the audience members.
#Finally, a shared online language and performance arena exist to transmit values and culture and construct virtual community ties.
More and more people than ever are going online. According to a Pew Internet and American Life survey from the first quarter of 2007, more than 71 % of American adults use the <html> <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/trends/User_Demo_6.15.07.htm">Internet</a> </html>. Charting the number of people on the Web, however, is easy compared with how they are using it. The same Pew survey lists more than 100 <html> <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/trends/Internet_Activities_8.28.07.htm">online activities</a> </html>, in which at least 4 percent of Internet users participate, including at least 25 activities that attract close to 40 percent of all Internet users. Looking at that growing list of Internet uses, it's tempting to dismiss many of them as simple fun and games. Others seems like inferior facsimilies of face-to-face interactions, such as chatting or sharing stories. But that kind of thinking remains mired in the textual realm that argues for definitive representations and complete and unchanging documents.
The purpose of this wiki is to call for an approach to Internet pursuits that mirrors both the goals and the process of oral traditions. Like the ancient epic poets, the Web can establish the lasting narrative structure for a tale that can survive the ages, thanks to the individual contributions of its tellers. Like the ancient bards, online musicians can embed classical music into our popular culture and expand the definition of what it means to live in the here and now. And like the ancient healers, online collaborators and facilitators can bring like-minded and like-afflicted persons together to soothe their pain and treat their disorders.
Much smarter scholars than I have already started to make some of these connections, and I rely heavily upon their intelligence to guide this discussion. I begin with a review of the their work, the literature surrounding Internet uses and oral tradition to bolster the connections I'm trying to make. But in the spirit of the Internet as a performance arena that brings people together from all parts of the globe to expand and enhance the narrative, I've relied upon one of the most oral of all Internet traditions - the wiki - to begin the discussion. I encourage all readers to glance over the background information to get an idea where I'm coming from and then add examples and arguments of their own. My goal here is not to create the definitive encyclopedia article about how oral tradition and the Internet intersect. Instead, I want to simply provide a place where we can discuss how the Internet works more like a conversation than a static text in the hopes of better understand the role the Internet plays in our lives.
In four years of graduate level research online, I've already started to see how Web pursuits draw diverse groups of people together to create vibrant narrative communities. I hope the examples I've chosen on the left side demonstrate that. But I'd love to hear about other examples from you. So go ahead! Have at it! By performing together maybe we can truly transmit our shared culture, no matter who or where we are.
Also, one side note. I also ask for your patience and assistance in making this wiki the most it can be. I'm still learning the technical aspects of the Web. If you see a typo or missing reference, go ahead and correct it as well. Or if you see an opportunity to add some code to spruce things up, drop me a line as well at <html> <a> <href="hanskmeyer@gmail.com">hanskmeyer@gmail.com </a></html>
[[Introduction]]
[[Oral Tradition]]
[[The Internet]]
[[Intersections]]
[[Performance Theory]]
[[Example: Line Rider]]
[[Example: Canon Rock]]
[[Example: Healing Online]]
[[Summary]]
[[References]]
Explaining what constitutes an oral tradition is in just one Web page is probably close to impossible. <html> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition">Wikipedia </a> </html> tried it in fact, and provides a decent background. But to really understand oral traditions John Miles Foley (2002) explains you have to first realize how prevalent they really are.
>"Everywhere one looks, whether in third world or high-tech societies, oral tradition remains central to human communication. On a per capita basis, there is little doubt that - notwithstanding the culturally egocentric models of books and electronics that we scholars tend to employ - oral tradition is still the major communications technology for our species" (Foley, 2002).
Oral traditions really are based in conversation, Rosenberg (1987) writes.
>All of the verbal elements in culture - literate and non-literate, but especially the later - are transmitted by a long chain of interlocking face-to-face conversations between members of the group. All beliefs and values are related orally, face-to-face, and are held in human memory. Writing and other components of a material tradition are ideal for preserving data, but do not lend themselves so cogently to the assertion of a culture's values" (Rosenberg, 1987).
First, however, it's important to look at some of the classifications of oral traditions scholars have found. Foley (2002) said oral traditions do much more than entertain and instruct. "Oral poetry also supports the performance of rituals, contests, healing remedies, genealogies, laments, and myriad other activities. In that respect, it is a much more utilitarian form of verbal art than is the more narrowly functional written literature".
He specifies four categories of oral poetry:
#Oral Performance
# Voiced Texts
#Voices from the Past
#Written Oral Poems
For our discussion, we'll place the Internet within the fourth category, which might seem less oral than the others, because these works are composed textually first before performed. However, Foley (2002) emphasizes how important these works are to the overall discussion.
>"Although every aspect of their existence owes a debt to writing, these works also use the special language of oral poetry. Thus we can read them effectively only when we take into account their genesis as an oral tradition" (Foley, 2002).
Applying the principles of oral traditions to the Internet improves our ability to effectively understand what is going on. Even though it is primarily textual, [[The Internet]] remains a social medium and people react to it much as they would to a real person. To make the comparison complete, I've shied away from a broad definition of oral tradition and instead tried here to draw upon the works of OT scholars to describe a few aspects that especially seem to apply online. I'll discuss their application in even greater detail in [[Intersections]].
First, storytelling in conversation and in oral tradition is essential, and this story telling is based on audience participation in inferred meaning (Rosenberg, 1987)
Second, telling a story isn't enough. The most marked trait of oral tradition, which Rosenberg calls "oralature" is repetition. A story has to be something others can either perform, comment upon, or revise as well.
A word-for-word retelling is not what reperformance means. Jenkins (2007) argues that creativity and re-invention are the essence of tradition. To make the most of the performance, poets rely upon special language, performance elements and even gestures to provide audience shortcuts. Sometimes, these peformance elements seem like verbatim repetitions of common words and phrases. Scholars first dismissed these as errors or techniques to improve the performers recall. More careful examination, however, revealed these commonalities helped orient audiences to the type of tradition and its meaning. Rosenberg (1987), in fact, said these cues allow fluent audiences to participate more effectively.
All of these performance elements and traditions come together so an oral tradition can work to transmit cultural items from one member to another. The reperformance aspects bring communities of people closer together with a shared language and shared values.
Understanding the role an oral performance fulfills requires deeply examining the context in which the performance took place, not just its content. In his book, //How to Read an Oral Poem//, John Miles Foley (2002) explains how to get at some of that context.
>"We can gain some genuine insight into the nature of oral poetry, as well as provide a framework for meaningful analogies and comparisons, by focusing not only on the content or form of the various traditions but on //how they are created, transmitted, and received//" (85).
Describing how traditions are created, transmitted, and received forms the foundation of what Foley and Richard Bauman call performance theory. Performance theory seeks to decode an event, breaking down all of its elements from verbal components to gestures to costume (Foley, 2002). "It seeks to red the signs, whatever those signs may be" (85).
The aspects of a performance that give the audience meaning are what Bauman (1977) called the keys to performance. These keys include special codes, figurative language, parallelism, special formulas, appeals to tradition and disclaimers of performance, and serve as signals to alert the audience what kind of experience they can expect.
It is the audience's responsibility in a sense to gain the fluency needed to get the most they can from the performance. This really is not unlike other communicative acts, Foley (2002) describes.
>"Each type of speech-act ... has its own rules for composition (the performer's job) and reception (the audience's job), and each register is markedly different from the everyday discourse of informal talk ... Once we realize that overall linguistic competence consists not simply of knowledge of the general, standard language, but fluency in a wide range of registers, then it is easier to understand how cultures and individuals can and do command both oral and written modes of expression."
But the keys to performance are not all verbal, and an examination of how the Internet resembles an oral tradition would be incomplete if it focused only on the words on the screen. In applying the performance theory framework to slam poetry, Foley (2002) described not only the words the poets spoke or how the poets acted, but also the background the audience brought with them to the event and how they demonstrated their fluency during the contest. In fact, Foley describes the performance arena - the virtual space and time in which the poet and audience transact - as another key performance element. The performance creates this arena, not the other way around.
Through the application of performance theory, I have tried to explain as much of what fluent audience members in the communities I selected would know. In many of these communities, I am little above a novice myself, but I have tried to immerse myself in the experience as much as possible to recreate the performance arena. I appreciate and look forward to using this wiki to document even more of the fluency components for online oral traditions, like the ones I've added here.
Bazley, Lewis. (2007). "Colbie Caillat: I Owe MySpace." inthenews.co.uk. Originally posted Nov. 28, 2007. http://www.inthenews.co.uk/infocus/entertainment/music/colbie-caillat-i-owe-myspace-$1173227.htm
Carey, James. (2005). "Historical Pragmatism and the Internet." //New Media & Society//, 7 (4): 443-455.
Fernback, Jan. (2003). "Legends on the Net: An Examination of Computer-Mediated Communication as a Locus of Oral Culture." //New Media & Society//, 5 (1): 29-45
Foley, John Miles. (2002). //How to Read an Oral Poem//. University of Illinois Press: Chicago
Forrest, John. (2006). "Folklore for a New Century." //Reviews in Anthropology//, 35:139-154
Garner, Lori Ann. (2004). "Anglo-Saxon Charms in Performance." //Oral Tradition//, 19 (1): 20-42
Harrington, Richard. (2007). "Colbie Caillat: A MySpace Star on the Rise." //The Washington Post//, Aug. 17, 2007, page WE06: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081600730.html
Harvey, Todd. (2007). "Never Quite Sung in this Fashion Before: Bob Dylan's 'Man of Constant Sorrow.'" //Oral Tradition//, 22 (1): 99-111
Heffernan, Virginia. (2006). "Web Guitar Wizard Revealed at Last." //The New York Times Online//, Aug. 27, 2006: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/arts/television/27heff.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Heffernan, Virgina. (2006). "FunTWO's Identity REVEALED!". //The New York Times Online//, Aug. 11, 2006: http://themedium.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/funtwos-identity-revealed/
Jenkins, Richard. (2007). "The Transformations of Biddy Early: From Local Reports of Magical Healing to Globalised New Age Fantasies." //Folklore//, 118: 162-182
Kopun, Francine. (2006). "Line Rider: Virtual Sledding." //The Toronto Star//, Nov. 26, 2007, page A07
Mason, Bruce Lionel. (1998). "E-Texts: The Orality and Literacy Issue Revisited." //Oral Tradition//, 13 (2): 306-329
Murdoch, Julian. (2007). "Line Rider: How Eastern Europe, the Midwest, and Orange County came together over a little dude on a sled." //Computer Gaming World// 9
Negus, Keith. (2007). "Living, Breathing Songs: Singing Along with Bob Dylan." //Oral Tradition//, 22 (1): 71-83
Ong, Walter J. (1995). "Hermeneutic Forever: Voice, Text, Digitization and the 'I.'" //Oral Tradition//, 10 (1): 3-26
Rafaeli, S., Raban, D., & Kalman, Y. (2005). Social Cognition Online. In Y. Amichai-Hamburger (Ed.), The Social Net: Understanding Human Behavior in Cyberspace (pp. 57-90). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Rodgers, S. and Chen, Q. (2005). "Internet Community Group Participation" Psychosocial Benefits for Women with Breast Cancer." //Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication//, 10 (4), article 5. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/rodgers.html
Rosenberg, Bruce. (1987). "The Complexity of Oral Tradition." //Oral Tradition//, 2 (1): 73-90
Understanding the Web as more than a collection of texts
The Internet as an Oral Tradition
I debated greatly on what to call this section. It began as a "conclusion," devolved into "final thoughts" and finally emerged in its present form. The naming process helped me realize how entrenched I remain in a textual world and how I need to focus more on practicing what I preach.
I did want to summarize a bit what I've tried to do here. I recognize, just like any oral tradition - whether online or performed live - that this is neither complete nor definitive. It would not survive even Wikipedia's vetting process. But after a lot of study, pondering, and writing, I'm OK with that. In fact, I'm excited to see what direction this line of inquiry will take me and other media scholars.
But I do hope my background information and my three brief examples have demonstrated how the Internet is better understood by looking at more than its context. Performance theory provides a basis on which to examine the context, history and development of online communities in an effort to truly understand why they form. Oral tradition research suggests that goofy slang of Line Rider creators, who talk about nose slides and "the dude," forms the basis for their performance arena and the shortcuts for appreciating it. The stories they tell through black and white scribbles on a screen convey the same heroic themes as Homer's //Odyssey// or the same pastoral reflections as Biddy Early (Jenkins, 2007) once did.
By digitizing their performances and uploading accompanying backing tracks and tablatures, YouTubers are also participating in the same tradition as classical composers, such as Pachelbel, and modern tunesmiths, such as Bob Dylan, who truly understand that music is meant to be performed and experienced, not merely heard. By sharing their stories and their pain online, those who suffer from disease in a technological age receive the same assurance, support and faith to go on that Anglo-Saxons experienced from healing charms. In the end, each of these modern oral traditions transmits enough cultural significance to actually create lasting communities that transcend face-to-face interactions.
Like any worthwhile line of research, there's much to still be learned from the intersections of oral tradition and the Internet. With this wiki, I hope we can go through this process together. Go back over the background I've offered here or draw upon your own personal experience, and I hope we can show the Internet does much more than offer a place to waste time.
The Internet represents a great technological leap in how human beings communicate, but we are missing the point if we focus only on the technology. The Internet is fundamentally a social medium. It has been socially constructed to fulfill people’s need to interact with others, Rafaeli, Raban & Kalman (2005) argue. As a technology, it only has value based on the number of people using it and what they decide to do with it.
Instead of recognizing the ‘Net as a social system, early Internet researchers focused on the technology and were concluded it represents a step down from face-to-face communication that could potentially damage to the society’s social fabric. It is so convenient to use that it would discourage people from ever leaving their homes (cited in Rafaeli, Raban & Kalman, 2005).
By acknowledging the ‘Net’s social fabric, however, researchers have learned that it operates more as a companion to face-to-face communication, than a replacement. It facilitates better social encounters in some ways because it can bring groups of people together from more diverse backgrounds and geographical locations than pure face-to-face communication. To ensure Internet research does not fall into the traps the first researchers exposed, it must shift its focus away from simply technology, content, or generic use. Instead it needs to look at the social underpinning of how and why people use the Internet, and why they use it differently sometimes than others.
>“The online environment has great potential; it is very interesting, but it is not as threatening to the ways we interact with self, other and one’s own group as might have been construed from some of the early theories proposed in the field” (Rafaeli, Raban & Kalman, 2005: 58).
Carey (2005) recognized the same flaws in Internet research. He argued that early online studies failed to properly contextualize the historical antecedents of the technology, even including oral traditions.
>"Technology is always embedded in the real history of real people, real desires, a real economy and real political possibilities and foreclosures. To 'think technology' as something operating abstractly, outside of history, outside of the political and economic moment in which it is born, is to misunderstand both the possibilities and limitations of any given technology" (Carey, 2005: 446-7).
One of his examples of modern misunderstanding is music performance. Technology has helped us return to the oral tradition "where knowledge of written music is no longer necessary and the performer and composer can be reunited in one person. However, the enormous gains in musical capacity should not obscure the world that has been lost in the process, particularly the loss of a sacred tradition."
In general, Internet technology has achieved similar ends in other instances. It was supposed to overcome textual barriers and vastly extend participatory democracy by giving more people a voice, Mason (1998) argued, but in reality, people are using it to do many of the same things they always did. It has simply merged oral and literate voices for greater communication efficiency. E-mail, for example, is textual, but appears "unabashedly oral."
>"In a disembodied, depersonalized medium in which users change gender and virtual community at will, in which one has only a few typewriter characters with which to communicate, we see literacy being subverted. Punctuation marks become faces; capital letters are shouting; lines, sentences, and paragraphs become optional" (323).
The way to study the Internet and how it relates to oral tradition is a "virtual ethnography." Mason (1998) argues that the person and his or her experience cannot be divorced from the content. "Consequently, a virtual ethnography is one that is conducted within the 'consensual hallucination' of 'Cyberspace' (Gibson, 1984) rather than one that treats the keyboard, surrounding room, and 'real world' environment of the stereotypical Internet communicator as the primary context" (306). In his stsudy, Mason applies many of Ong's principles of oral tradition, such as "oral utterances are additive," and "oral utterances are aggregative."
In other words, to understand the Internet, researchers cannot simply focus on the technology that powers it or the content available on it. They must understand who uses it and why and they cannot be satisfied with the simple utilitarian answers. People use the Internet not just because it's useful or because it fulfills a need. In examining the intersections between the Internet and oral tradition in the next section, I argue the Internet fulfills many of the same roles orally transmitted traditions did.
/***
|Name|TiddlyLockPlugin|
|Source|http://www.minormania.com/tiddlylock/tiddlylock.html|
|Version|1.1.0|
|TiddlyWiki Core Version|2.5.0|
|Author|Richard Hobbis|
|License|[[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/]]|
|Type|plugin|
|Overrides|config.macros.newTiddler.onClickNewTiddler(), config.commands.cancelTiddler.handler(), config.commands.deleteTiddler.handler, config.commands.editTiddler.handler(), config.commands.saveTiddler.handler(), saveChanges(), checkUnsavedChanges()|
|Description|Automatically locks and unlocks the TiddlyWiki as required, allowing multiple users to edit the TiddlyWiki without fear of overwriting other users' changes.|
!!!Usage
<<<
Simply import TiddlyLockPlugin into your TiddlyWiki!
<<<
!!!Installation
<<<
Import (or copy/paste) ''this tiddler'' into your TiddlyWiki and make sure it's tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>. Reload your TiddlyWiki to enable TiddlyLock.
<<<
!!!Configuration
<<<
None required!
<<<
!!!Revision History
<<<
''2009.05.28 [1.1.0]'' Upgraded this file to TiddlyWiki core version 2.5.0.
''2007.06.22 [1.0.4]'' Added locking on 'new tiddler' which also traps 'new journal'. Tweaked messages.
''2007.06.20 [1.0.3]'' Fixed an issue that occurred when a user navigated away from the TiddlyWiki without saving outstanding changes.
''2007.05.10 [1.0.2]'' Implemented a timestamp to track the last update time. This fixes the multi-browser edit issue and also removes the need for a password.
''2007.05.08 [1.0.1]'' Function overrides are now done using apply() ensuring clean upgrades (thanks Martin!)
''2007.05.01 [1.0.0]'' Initial Release
<<<
!!!Known Issues
<<<
*Monkey Pirate TiddlyWiki (MPTW) adds a ''disable'' button to the toolbar for systemConfig tiddlers. This button is available even when the TW is marked as readOnly and therefore it's possible for two users to disable/enable plugins at the same time. In this case, whoever saves the TW last will 'win' and their changes will be saved. Note that this is only an issue if there are no other unsaved changes in both browsers - TiddlyLock still handles all other changes.
<<<
!!!Credits
<<<
This feature was developed by Richard Hobbis (rhobbis [at] hotmail [dot] com).
<<<
!!!Code
***/
//{{{
// Convert a date to UTC YYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM string format
// This is the same as the builtin function convertToYYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM() but
// without the '.' in the middle - this allows simple date comparisons
Date.prototype.TLConvertToYYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM = function()
{
return(String.zeroPad(this.getUTCFullYear(),4)
+ String.zeroPad(this.getUTCMonth()+1,2)
+ String.zeroPad(this.getUTCDate(),2)
+ String.zeroPad(this.getUTCHours(),2)
+ String.zeroPad(this.getUTCMinutes(),2)
+ String.zeroPad(this.getUTCSeconds(),2)
+ String.zeroPad(this.getUTCMilliseconds(),4));
}
// namespace for TiddlyLock
TiddlyLock = {};
// Load/Last Update timestamp
TiddlyLock.TimeStamp = new Date().TLConvertToYYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM();
// Lockfile
TiddlyLock.LockPath = '';
TiddlyLock.OldLockData = '';
TiddlyLock.LockData = '';
// define messages
TiddlyLock.Msg = {
Locked: 'File locked',
Unlocked: 'File unlocked',
LockFailed: 'Failed to lock file',
UnlockFailed: 'Failed to unlock file',
ReadOnly: 'Now in Read-Only mode.',
Changed: 'This file has been changed by someone else.',
Reload: 'Reload this file before editing.'};
// create/update the lock file
function TLSave(timeStamp,lockedBy)
{
var lockedText='';
if (lockedBy!='')
{
lockedText=timeStamp+'##'+lockedBy;
}
else lockedText=timeStamp+'##';
var lockSave=saveFile(TiddlyLock.LockPath,lockedText);
TiddlyLock.TimeStamp = timeStamp;
return false;
}
// Create/update the lock file to prevent other users from editing the TW
function TLLock()
{
clearMessage();
lockSave = TLSave(new Date().TLConvertToYYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM(),config.options.txtUserName);
displayMessage(TiddlyLock.Msg.Locked,'');
return false;
}
// Clear the lock file if necessary, but only if I have it locked, setting the
// timestamp in the lockfile to the specified value
function TLUnlock(timeStamp)
{
if ((store && store.isDirty && !store.isDirty())
&& (story && story.areAnyDirty && !story.areAnyDirty())
&& TLIsLocked()
&& TLIsLockedByMe())
{
lockSave=TLSave(timeStamp,'','');
displayMessage(TiddlyLock.Msg.Unlocked,'');
TiddlyLock.OldLockData = TiddlyLock.LockData;
}
return false;
}
// Get the contents of the lock file, if it exists
function TLLockPath()
{
var lockPath,p;
var originalPath=document.location.toString();
var localPath=getLocalPath(originalPath);
if((p=localPath.lastIndexOf('.')) != -1)
lockPath=localPath.substr(0,p) + '.lck';
else lockPath=localPath + '.lck';
return lockPath;
}
// Get the contents of the lock file, if it exists
function TLLockData()
{
TiddlyLock.LockPath = TLLockPath();
return loadFile(TiddlyLock.LockPath);
}
// Get the contents of the lock file, if it exists
function TLIsLocked()
{
TiddlyLock.LockData = TLLockData();
if (TiddlyLock.LockData
&& ( TLLockedBy(TiddlyLock.LockData)!='' // someone has it locked
|| TiddlyLock.TimeStamp < TLLockedTimeStamp(TiddlyLock.LockData) // changed by someone else but not currently locked
)
)
return true;
else
return false;
}
// check if locked by me
function TLIsLockedByMe()
{
if(TiddlyLock.LockData == TiddlyLock.TimeStamp+'##' + config.options.txtUserName)
return true;
else
return false;
}
// returns just the timestamp portion of the supplied lock file contents
function TLLockedTimeStamp(lockData)
{
if(lockData)
return lockData.split('##')[0];
else
return '';
}
// returns just the username portion of the supplied lock file contents
function TLLockedBy(lockData)
{
if(lockData)
return lockData.split('##')[1];
else
return '';
}
// display a message if locked or changed
function TLChangesAllowed()
{
if(TLIsLocked() && !TLIsLockedByMe())
{
// if(!readOnly)
{
readOnly=true;
if(TLLockedBy(TiddlyLock.LockData))
{
displayMessage(TiddlyLock.Msg.Locked+' by '+TLLockedBy(TiddlyLock.LockData));
alert(TiddlyLock.Msg.Locked+' by '+TLLockedBy(TiddlyLock.LockData)+'. '+TiddlyLock.Msg.ReadOnly);
}
else
{
displayMessage(TiddlyLock.Msg.Changed+' '+TiddlyLock.Msg.Reload);
alert(TiddlyLock.Msg.Changed+' '+TiddlyLock.Msg.Reload);
}
}
return false;
}
else
return true;
}
//*********************************************
// OVERRIDE STANDARD FUNCTIONS
//*********************************************
//
// OVERRIDE onClickNewTiddler()
//
TiddlyLock.onClickNewTiddler = config.macros.newTiddler.onClickNewTiddler;
config.macros.newTiddler.onClickNewTiddler = function(event,src,title)
{
if (TLChangesAllowed())
{
TiddlyLock.OldLockData = TiddlyLock.LockData;
TLLock();
var ret = TiddlyLock.onClickNewTiddler.apply(this,arguments);
return ret;
}
}
//
// OVERRIDE checkUnsavedChanges()
//
TiddlyLock.checkUnsavedChanges = checkUnsavedChanges;
checkUnsavedChanges = function(event,src,title)
{
var ret = TiddlyLock.checkUnsavedChanges.apply(this,arguments);
if(TLIsLocked() && TLIsLockedByMe())
lockSave=TLSave(TLLockedTimeStamp(TiddlyLock.OldLockData),'','');
return ret;
}
//
// OVERRIDE cancelTiddler()
//
TiddlyLock.cancelTiddler = config.commands.cancelTiddler.handler;
config.commands.cancelTiddler.handler = function(event,src,title)
{
var ret = TiddlyLock.cancelTiddler.apply(this,arguments);
TLUnlock(TLLockedTimeStamp(TiddlyLock.OldLockData));
return ret;
}
//
// OVERRIDE deleteTiddler()
//
TiddlyLock.deleteTiddler = config.commands.deleteTiddler.handler;
config.commands.deleteTiddler.handler = function(event,src,title)
{
if (TLChangesAllowed())
{
TiddlyLock.OldLockData = TiddlyLock.LockData;
TLLock();
var ret = TiddlyLock.deleteTiddler.apply(this,arguments);
return ret;
}
}
//
// OVERRIDE editTiddler()
//
TiddlyLock.editTiddler = config.commands.editTiddler.handler;
config.commands.editTiddler.handler = function(event,src,title)
{
if (TLChangesAllowed())
{
TiddlyLock.OldLockData = TiddlyLock.LockData;
TLLock();
}
var ret = TiddlyLock.editTiddler.apply(this,arguments);
return ret;
}
//
// OVERRIDE saveChanges()
//
TiddlyLock.saveChanges = saveChanges;
saveChanges = function(onlyIfDirty)
{
if(TLChangesAllowed())
{
var ret = TiddlyLock.saveChanges.apply(this,arguments);
TLUnlock(new Date().TLConvertToYYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM());
return ret;
}
else
return false;
}
//
// OVERRIDE saveTiddler()
//
TiddlyLock.saveTiddler= config.commands.saveTiddler.handler;
config.commands.saveTiddler.handler=function(event,src,title)
{
var ret = TiddlyLock.saveTiddler.apply(this,arguments);
TLUnlock(new Date().TLConvertToYYYYMMDDHHMMSSMMM());
return ret;
}
//}}}